opConfig Concepts

The main concepts to bear in mind are nodes, credential sets, commands, changes and revisions:

• NODES:

  • Nodes are devices/computers that opConfig knows about, and which it is configured to run commands for.

  • As opConfig needs to connect to the node in question and execute commands on that node, the node needs to be configured with access credentials. In opConfig these are stored independent from the nodes in what opConfig calls credential sets.

• CREDENTIAL SETS:

  • Credential sets are a combination of usernames, passwords, privileged passwords etc. allowing access to the devices CLI.
  • Once the credential set has been used to create a working CLI access then "commands" can be issued and the results recorded.

• COMMAND SETS

  • Commands are normally command line constructs which will be executed on the node in question. 

    • (Some are "passive commands" like "audit-import" which are not actually run on the node but the result is associated with node.

    • Commands can be grouped and collected into what opConfig calls a "command set". Command sets are configured to apply only to particular OS and maybe versions or platforms.
      

  • The command output is captured and stored by opConfig.

  •  Command outputs are compared against the previous revision, and if different it's saved as a new revision in opConfig.  It could also be a one-shot command which is not analyzed in great detail (e.g. a process listing or some other diagnostic command)

  • A command can be marked for change detection in which case more detailed analysis occurs for changes.

• CHANGES / REVISIONS:

  • Command outputs can be marked for change detection (e.g. a listing of installed software), in which case opConfig creates detailed records of what the changes are - again only if there are differences between the current command output and the most recent revision for this command.

  • Revisions are  the time series of the command outputs and there changes.